The Brotherhood of Jugsmen—those who have built replicas of the coveted Little Brown Jug— is becoming long and distinguished. By my count we’re at 7. And as an aside I know someone else sent me some photos last year but I lost track. If you feel worthy of membership by all means, send me your story and some photos. I know there are a few Minnesota fans out that that are rocking replicas in their boat houses—let’s see ‘em. Here’s the current list: Eric Mierzwiak – 2009 post, Not Available in Stores Mark Foster – 2010 post, His Own Little Brown Jug (v2) Dennis Dail – 2011 post, Jug Club +1 Brian Snider – 2011 post The Jug Brotherhood +++ Daniel and his wedding crew – 2011 post, The Eleven Jugsmen T.C. Thorton – 2012 post Joining the Brotherhood of Jugsmen Jil Gordon – Editor’s discretion. She paints the jug fergodsakes. One of the earliest members of Local 1903 is Mark Foster and over the years he’s gradually stepped up his game. Since creating a replica in 2010, Foster built a custom case for the jug and went onto to create subsequent replica jugs. That brings us to reason for this post: Over the past year he decided to take this passion to the next level—building a replica of the…
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Jug-ists Rejoice
This blogger rejoices over the news tonight. So does this guy (below). That’s Louis J. "Doc" Cooke, longtime Minnesota administrator who started Little Brown Jug rivalry by suggesting the teams play for the crock in 1909: If you’re not ready to rejoice, take in the entire Little Brown Jug lore series: Part I: What Really Happened in the 1930s Part II: Spinning Myths Part III: Getting it Right Part IV: 2013: A Space Quandary Part V: Red Wing Roots Part VI: Is the Greatest Trophy in College Sports a Fake? Part VII: Open Questions Follow MVictors on Twitter
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Less Frequent Brown Jug
The topic of conference rivalries came up on several occasions at Big Ten media days last week. You may have caught Minnesota coach Tim Brewster utter the following: “We haven’t played Michigan for the past two years,” Brewster said. “To me, I don’t see anything different there. Obviously the Little Brown Jug is a historical game and it’s been really important to Michigan and Minnesota for a long time … I just don’t feel like that game is in the same place as the Wisconsin and Iowa games.” A few thoughts here. Clearly the history of this game and its trophy means a lot to me and it seems to be a given that the Wolverines and Gophers will be on the opposite side of the soon-to-be-announced Big Ten divisions. This will mean that the teams won’t meet on a regular basis and the battle for the jug will be an on-again, off-again affair. I’m ok with this. If the conference moves to a nine game conference slate, Michigan will still face four of the six team in the opposite division anyway. The Jug game won’t be going away and when they do meet it’ll mean that much more. And heck, we’re running out of space on the crock anyway: Related, The Little Brown Jug Lore Series: Part I: What…
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Jug Deal: Win One, Get two Free
The original Little Brown (White?) Jug, from Historic Michigan Football Photos. HT: Caught this nugget on Sam Webb’s show this morning and it really hurts. The winner of Saturday’s battle will keep the Little Brown Jug for not only a year, but until November 5, 2011 (!). Bollocks! Yes, due to the way the schedule shakes out the Wolverines and Gophers don’t meet for another three years. Thankfully that game is in Ann Arbor (kick-off time hasn’t been determined quite yet). That’s our jug! As Lloyd Carr reminded everyone last year, we bought it, they stole it. It’s ours–let’s keep it. Should we fail, it’ll be the longest stint that the jug’s been in Minnesota since a four year stretch from 1960 until Michigan won it back in 1964. Previous to that, Minnesota’s great Bennie Bierman-led Depression era teams held the receptacle from 1934-1942.